


Putting Descartes Before the Horse

by monimala



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gap Filler, Hate Sex, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 06:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10714284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: Takes place directly after the events of episode 4.18, "No Regrets."He knows plenty about being human. But Jemma can’t see it. She won’t see it.





	Putting Descartes Before the Horse

“Do you still think none of this is real?”

He doesn’t mean to say it. It just slips out. A sigh of frustration as he tugs off his gear and she efficiently removes the dust and tear tracks from her face with a wet wipe. When she looks up at him, she’s clean but somehow still grimy. Like she never quite left the mass grave she claims she climbed out of. Jemma Simmons is hard, but broken into pieces. Like the shattered concrete that rained down on them an hour ago.

“What do you want me to say, Ward?” she replies in that hollow voice he’s come to know so well, so heavy on loathing and light on trust. “You’re not likely to believe me, no matter what answer I give. Director Mace didn’t, and now he’s dead here _and_ outside the Framework.”

The fucking Framework. “According to you, I died there. On the outside.” He was evil. A double agent for Hydra. He and Skye — Daisy, he has to remind himself — never had a chance. From what he’s been able to piece together from Daisy and Simmons’ explanations, he’s just a bizarre turn in an AI’s twisted Choose Your Own Adventure game. A trick of programming. Except he breathes. And eats. And sleeps. And shits. So what does _that_ mean? “ _Cogito ergo sum_ doesn’t apply, huh?” he murmurs. “I think, but I am not. You’re standing right next to me, and we’re grieving the same man, but only your feelings count.” Mace was a good leader. A good friend. Ward can hold into that even amidst all the existential bullshit. “Only _you_ get to cry. Everyone else is a waste of time.”

“I...no.” Simmons flinches and lists toward the wall. A furrow forms between her brows. For a second he sees what she must’ve been like before all of this. A pretty girl with a sharp mind and a big heart. When she looks at him this time, her eyes are anything but empty. “You were our friend. We loved you. And you betrayed us over and over. In the worst ways. But here...here, it’s Fitz who’s become someone I don’t know.” Her voice breaks and she shakes her head, striking at her own chest with her fist. “ _My_ Fitz. And every time I look at you, that’s all I see. His goodness and yours have traded places. It’s a bloody joke.”

Ward grabs her hand before she can lash out again, at herself _or_ at him. “You loved me,” he repeats, like it’s a foreign concept. It _is_ , given how she’s treated him since she showed up here. Its hard to fathom that someone who hates him so much could’ve ever felt something else. “If you loved me, I couldn’t have been all bad. And maybe _your_ Fitz wasn’t all sunshine and puppies. That’s what being human is about.”

Just when he thinks he’s gotten through to her, she jerks her fingers from his grip. All her pain and vulnerability turn back into anger. “Fuck off. What would _you_ know about being human?”

Grant remembers growing up. Getting Tim and their sister away from Christian and their parents. Enlisting. Getting recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. Watching in horror as Hydra took over government operations. Falling in love with Skye. Holding her in his arms at night. He knows plenty about being human. But Jemma can’t see it. She _won’t_ see it. It’s easier for her to write him off as a rogue bit of code than accept that he exists. That _all_ of this exists. And that it matters.

“I’m real, Simmons.” He takes a step into her space, easily crowding her. She’s so tiny. An illusion of fragility. “You might not want to deal with it, but I know it. I don’t vanish or power down when you leave the room. I think. I am. I feel. I make decisions — bad ones,” he admits with a weary laugh.

“Like what?” she scoffs, tensing up, readying for a fight. “Throwing your friends into the ocean?”

“No. Like this.” This time when he takes her hand, he guides it to his face. “Feel me. Touch me. And then try and tell yourself it’s fake.”

Her wrist is delicate, her fingers fine-boned and light. But he still braces himself for a slap instead of an exploratory caress. It doesn’t come. Instead, she brushes her fingertips along his cheek. Across his beard stubble. Taking his invitation at literal face value. She traces his eyebrows and even the curve of his ear. And then she sighs. “It’s remarkable,”she says in tone that telegraphs it’s anything but. “The level of detail is truly convincing. It must be a function of my own consciousness.”

_Fuck_. He’s been patient. More than understanding. But she won’t even give him an inch. He grasps her fingers, watches the alarm flash in her eyes as he forces her hand down. Across his chest. Over his heart. Lower. “Does this seem like an algorithm to you?” he demands. His dick shouldn’t be hard. This is absolutely _not_ the time. But it’s a “level of detail” he can’t control. Not when he’s pissed off and his adrenaline’s high and they’re doing this dance that’s almost like foreplay. “Are you dreaming this right now?” Jemma Simmons is crazy and stubborn, but she’s also beautiful, and his body’s response to her is his last, desperate, bid to have his humanity acknowledged. “This is real,” he tells her fiercely. “This is 100 percent real, and it’s because of you.”

“That’s disgusting! A manufactured biological impulse is hardly...I mean, it’s not an indicator —” Her cheeks go red as she stammers. She’s horrified. Furious. But then her palm presses into his dick. Her thumb grazes his balls, so damn tight in his pants. And he hears the barely-there catch of her breath. “ _Oh_.” The surprised little moan that follows.

He's in love with Skye. He shouldn’t kiss her. But he does. She's in love with Dr. Fitz. She shouldn’t kiss him back. But she does. It’s hot and hard and wrong. They stumble and stagger and end up against the wall. She squeezes his erection with one hand and tugs at his hair with the other. He circles her throat with both of his, and he tells himself it’s to hold her in place and not because he could so easily choke her out. They kiss and bite and scratch and claw until it’s not enough anymore.

Things get unzipped. Frantically pushed aside. And then she’s wrapping her legs around his hips and he’s sinking into her. Bare. No need for a condom. Because, _fuck_ , if he’s just a piece of the Framework, he can’t get her pregnant no matter how many times he shoots inside her. Maybe he could give her a computer virus, though. An FTD. Ward laughs at the lunacy even though there’s nothing funny about this. He chuckles into Jemma’s mouth and buries his cock in her. Slick and warm and welcoming, but so goddamn tight. He slides all the way in. All the way out. Slamming her into the wall with each thrust. Hungry little sobs fall from her lips, and he catches them on his tongue.

Maybe it’s minutes. Maybe it’s hours. But it’s also her nails digging into his nape and him hiking her thigh higher so he can get a better angle. It’s her saying “yes,” and him going even rougher. Punctuating his thrusts with a reminder of, “I’m real,” and “I’m here.” And she takes his cock every time. Jemma’s pussy accepts and acknowledges him in a way her brain never will. Maybe she’ll still feel him inside her when she’s woken up in her own world. She’ll remember this. Him seated in her to the hilt. Her grinding up on him and saying that she hates him even as her cunt milks him for all he’s worth.

No matter what happens next, she’ll never be able to deny this reality. Or erase the memory of coming and coming and coming as she gasps out his name. _His_ name. _Grant_. That’s all it takes to shove him over the edge, too.

He fucks, therefore he is.

“Jemma,” he whispers into her hair, cradling her close, catching her before she can climb off his dick and scramble away. His knees are weak. Hers have to be, too. “Dammit, Jemma. I am so, so sorry.”

Her cheek is warm against his chest. Damp with tears. Cried not from grief but from pleasure. “Now _that_ I believe,” she laughs, damply.

It’s the most promising thing he’s heard in days...and the most terrifying. Because it means she could love him in this world, too. And that he could love her back.

He is, therefore he’s fucked.

 


End file.
